


an old memory

by nbsherlock



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action Figures, Hurt/Comfort, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Kissing, M/M, Recovery, as a coping mechanism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 15:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13977939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbsherlock/pseuds/nbsherlock
Summary: “what are you looking at?” bucky murmurs.steve looks over at him and smiles. his face is soft and calm. bucky’s chest aches. “howling commandos lunch boxes.”bucky chuckles and rolls over, pressing his shoulder against steve’s. “they make me as handsome as i should be or are you going to send another strongly worded letter?”





	an old memory

**Author's Note:**

> just a bunch of little things i mashed together into what seems to be one cohesive fic?
> 
> as always there's no capital letters, which i know makes it less likely for someone to read a fic, but consider it prose! 
> 
> title is technically from holding on by the war on drugs which is a very stevebucky song. enjoy!

it’s a morning when he doesn’t wake with a start. he is asleep, and then he is no longer asleep. he looks at the ceiling and smiles. nothing important on his schedule, nothing to worry about. (hopefully) no alien invasions. 

he turns his head to see steve, squinting down at his tablet. steve has perfect vision but still looks at technology like he can’t fathom it. there’s something uniquely wonderful about the way his face lights up when he googles something from before and is able to see pictures of it, or better yet, order it to arrive at their apartment within days. 

“what are you looking at?” bucky murmurs. 

steve looks over at him and smiles. his face is soft and calm. bucky’s chest aches. “howling commandos lunch boxes.”

bucky chuckles and rolls over, pressing his shoulder against steve’s. “they make me as handsome as i should be or are you going to send another strongly worded letter?”

steve side-eyes him and sticks his tongue out. “they made you look ridiculous. and also lightened gabe’s skin.”

“that part was warranted,” bucky pokes steve in the arm. “the novel you wrote about my eyes was unnecessary and probably made some unfortunate customer service representatives very uncomfortable.”

steve shrugs. he scrolls down a list of lunchboxes and then taps on one. he does the reverse pinching thing that zooms you in on an image. “do you see that?” he points at the illustrated bucky barnes. “that doesn’t look anything like you.”

“granted, i don’t look anything like what i used to anyway.”

“you don’t look like this now, and you didn’t then either.”

bucky scrolls over to steve’s lunchbox face. “and this looks like you?”

“how i look doesn’t matter. there are too many lunchboxes with my face on them.”

bucky rolls onto his back. “can we look at the action figures?”

steve fixes him with a look. 

“but they’re funny.”

steve intensifies said look. 

bucky leans over and kisses him on the cheek. 

steve grumbles, but googles captain america action figures. bucky makes him order 12 of them. 

—

they arrive over the next few days. bucky takes immense joy in unwrapping packages, and finding dolls that look like steve in the packages is an added bonus. he hides them around the apartment and pretends not to know how they got there when steve stumbles upon one or two or five in the shower and throws them at him when he gets out. 

—

it’s a morning when he wakes from a nightmare. his skin feels tight and wrong, his hands search for weapons that aren’t there. he hasn’t hidden a knife in their bed in ages.

steve startles awake in response, mouth moving before his brain can catch up. “bucky what wrong?” he blurts. 

it’s so ridiculous that the panic is shattered and bucky starts hysterically laughing, clutching his stomach. steve blinks at him, reaches out, pats his cheek and falls back asleep. 

bucky keeps laughing but grabs his phone from the bedside table and texts natasha. 

—

steve is still asleep when she comes over. she brings pirozhky and stuffs bucky’s face until he can’t move. she laughs at the captain america action figures, three of which have been unclothed — the rest have painted on outfits. her laugh sounds like chimes. bucky smiles at her. she cradles his head in her lap and makes him watch the princess bride for the 14th time. he falls asleep halfway through, again. 

—

when he wakes, natasha is speaking in hushed tones to steve. 

“he’s fine,” she murmurs, “i fed him and he fell asleep.”

“sounds like bucky. how many times have you tried to get him to watch this movie?”

“fourteen times. fourteen, steve.”

bucky hears steve’s chuckle, and it makes his skin hum. he blinks, and natasha looks down at him. she knew he was awake that whole time, but slaps his cheek lightly. “fourteen times.”

bucky yawns. “your fault for feeding me comfort food before.”

natasha sticks her tongue out. “you deserve it.” she pairs childish with overwhelmingly kind so that it doesn’t hit him too hard. 

bucky pats his stomach. “i could eat more.”

natasha rolls her eyes but reaches for an insulated bag and pulls a container out. “you’re predictable.”

—

they don’t have sex very often, but when they do, it’s soft and lovely and bucky could wax poetic about it. 

they move together fluidly. steve kisses his neck and tries to maintain eye contact the whole time, so bucky knows he hasn’t left. so bucky knows it’s still him. sometimes bucky doesn’t have an orgasm, and that’s fine. he kisses steve and pets at him until he comes. 

at first, steve had been upset about it, adamant that if he got off, bucky should as well. bucky had rolled over and listened to a guided meditation until he fell asleep. there are times when he doesn’t want to deal with steve’s bullshit. there are times that he feels bad for even thinking that anything steve does is bullshit. 

he texted sam and sam explained to steve that bucky cannot always achieve orgasm, but that he finds sex just as enjoyable without it. he feels bad for making sam speak for him, especially about this, but sam assured him that voicing a thought is better than keeping it locked up, even if it’s not your voice saying it. 

steve had curled up behind bucky, afterward, and bucky relaxed into him. steve apologized and bucky kissed him. he kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and it was better than an orgasm. he told steve so. 

—

“i was trying to make latkes,” steve grumbles as bucky recovers from being jolted awake by the fire alarm. 

his heart is racing, but bucky manages a laugh. he manages a few. 

he had forgotten hanukkah was coming up. he is thankful that he has steve to remember things like that when he can’t, even if he burns latkes (how??) and scares the shit out of bucky in the process. 

steve holds bucky’s hand because he knows he can’t handle more than that at times like these, when the soldier, who usually lives miles and miles away in a frozen tundra, lingers just below his skin. bucky feels wrong making steve hold hands with it. steve shakes his head and kisses the hand he’s holding. 

bucky has to excuse himself and go to the bathroom where he subsequently vomits for 20 minutes. 

when he comes back, steve is pale and shaking. they mirror each other. bucky slips his hand back into steve’s and the soldier slinks back home. 

—

steve stumbles through hebrew prayer with bucky. as they finish, bucky is hit by a memory the size of a tidal wave. 

he has to sit down and hold his head in his hands in order to make sense of it. 

he is big, he is the soldier. he’s holding hands with steve, who is small and fragile, and the soldier knows if it closed its hand, it would break the bones in steve’s. they’re watching the candles in the menorah burn down. the soldier pushes the whole thing over and then they’re outside, watching a house burning down. and then it isn’t holding steve rogers’ hand, it’s holding a pistol and he’s standing next to the man who steve refers to sometimes as rumlow, and the man who steve refers to sometimes as rumlow hits it in the back of the head with a rifle, and it falls to its knees. bucky thinks it might cry. but weapons don’t cry, the soldier does not cry. 

when he comes back, he’s shaking. steve is on his knees in front of him, holding both his hands in his. bucky can barely breathe and he has to sign (they haven’t done this in ages) to tell steve he needs to get out of the apartment. 

steve nods and leads him out. they stand in front of the apartment but it isn’t burning. 

—

going to sleep is hard. his head buzzes and stutters, expecting punishment for even attempting to close his eyes. steve kisses his cheek. bucky wonders how good melted down to bad so quickly, like candles in a menorah. he wonders when good will build back up. he wonders if it will take effort from him, or if it will appear again with no warning like it usually does. 

he texts sam, brain not quieting enough to attempt sleep. steve snores, softly. 

he writes, will i have to work for things to be good again. 

sam replies, you know you ask me this every few weeks. and things always turn out okay. 

bucky writes, is steve working?

sam replies, no. he feels things too similar to how you do. he’s just as surprised when it’s a good morning. 

bucky swallows. that thought weighs down on him. 

sam writes again, not because of you so don’t even let yourself start thinking that

bucky closes his eyes and smiles a shaky smile. he swears that sam can read minds. 

—

when he wakes, steve is on his tablet again. 

“what are you looking at?”

steve tilts the tablet towards him. they’re action figures that look like natasha. 

“i’ve bought at least 20 of these, i need you to stop me,” steve mumbles. 

bucky shakes his head. “absolutely not.”

steve grins at him and bucky can’t help but grin back. 

he had just woken up. he was asleep, and then awake. he looks at steve and he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos & comments are really cool and give me the motivation i need to post fics i've finished and just sit in my notes like this one!
> 
> my tumblr is @margaritaville. see y'all there.


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